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    1. Tildes Book Club - Alternatives to handle goal to read books representing diverse and disadvantaged perspectives

      So I have been reflecting on the statements of many members of this book reading group that they want to include books from diverse perspectives. Talking about next year and looking at our current...

      So I have been reflecting on the statements of many members of this book reading group that they want to include books from diverse perspectives. Talking about next year and looking at our current voting results, I see three options and I would like us to vote on which the group prefers.

      First, we could accept a very long list from this voting thread and cut off choices just after Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. That would delay new nominations for over a year.

      Second, we could elevate Heaven and Earth Grocery Store and possibly Demon Copperhead to the top of the list in a sort of affirmative action.

      Third, we could agree that our next nomination thread (for a smaller list of books) would exclusively be taken from groups that are disadvantaged in some way. An incomplete list of such disadvantage would include being from a poor or formerly colonized country, being an immigrant or refugee, being a political/ethnic minority such as basque, romani or catalan or kurdish, being indigenous, being poor or ethnic minority in a dominant country, being a sexual/gender minority, being disabled etc.

      15 votes
    2. Searching for replacement parts for an aging game console controller

      My general question ... where do you folks go when searching for replacement parts for aging technology, particularly pertaining to game consoles? I've come across iFixit, and of course there's...

      My general question ... where do you folks go when searching for replacement parts for aging technology, particularly pertaining to game consoles? I've come across iFixit, and of course there's Amazon and eBay as well, but I've been having some difficulty finding a particular part.

      My specific issue is, I have an old Dualshock 4 (model CUH-ZDT2U, with PCB/motherboard model JDM-055) that is on the outs. It started experiencing some stick drift, so I took it apart to clean the contacts in the joystick housing to the best of my ability. In doing so, one of my kids managed to get a hold of the controllers' guts and break off the vibration motor wires from the board.

      So, after taking the board and chassis to a local Makerspace, I got the wires soldered back onto the board. So far so good! However, the stick drift is still an issue and the vibration connection isn't that great. So now, I'm hoping to find some replacement parts - namely, a replacement board with the chassis and motors included.

      One of the main reasons why I'm trying to refit this old controller, rather than replace it outright ... is because my wife bought the controller (and the PS4 it came with) as an anniversary present years ago. I'm the sentimental type and I'm trying to keep as much of this old controller going as I can, Ship-of-Theseus style. In addition, these controllers don't come cheap - $70 seems to be the basement these days for a new, in-box controller.

      I've taken a swing at purchasing replacement parts off eBay - however, while the controller models matched, the board models did not. iFixit has the exact parts I need, but they are out of stock and their stock is inconsistent. I found another site - Fasttech.ca - that purports to have the same parts, but looking around online I've found a fair bit of discussion surrounding this site and the fact that it may be less-than-reputable.

      Any advice on where else I might be able to look for parts?

      14 votes
    3. What to snack on (other than slices of parmesan)

      so this might be a weird question but -- occasionally, particularly in the evenings, I get a strong craving for parmesan cheese. I live in Germany, so I don't mean the green tube kind either. I'll...

      so this might be a weird question but -- occasionally, particularly in the evenings, I get a strong craving for parmesan cheese. I live in Germany, so I don't mean the green tube kind either. I'll just take little slices off a wedge of real-ass parmesan that we bought to shred over pasta and such.

      Thing is, parmigiano reggiano is pretty expensive, and the similar replacement cheeses like pecorino aren't that much cheaper. But I don't know of any other snack that can deliver the combo of saltiness and umami like just munching on slices of italian hard cheese.

      So, does anybody else on Tildes understand this? Or have any recommendations for other foods to scratch this itch? Keeping in mind I'm in Germany, so I'm limited to stuff I can buy here.

      38 votes
    4. What have you been listening to this week?

      What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as...

      What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

      Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

      You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

      http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

      Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

      10 votes
    5. A fantasy league

      Hey, folks! I've been playing fantasy NFL for about four years now. At first, I expected to hate it. Just, ya know, always a pop culture contrarian. It turned out after a year or two, I really...

      Hey, folks! I've been playing fantasy NFL for about four years now. At first, I expected to hate it. Just, ya know, always a pop culture contrarian. It turned out after a year or two, I really enjoy it!

      I've been watching hockey on and off since probably 2007. Would love to see if NHL Fantasy can drive my NHL enjoyment similarly to football.

      Not all of our little NFL group wants to try hockey. If you'd like to give it a whirl, I'd be happy to share the link to join! I need a few folks.

      6 votes
    6. Are Feeds - like RSS or Atom feeds - Really Worth It For A Personal Blog?

      I stopped blogging several years ago. Over the last few years, I've been writing plenty of private essays. However, very recently I have been considering starting to publish my writing and, well,...

      I stopped blogging several years ago. Over the last few years, I've been writing plenty of private essays. However, very recently I have been considering starting to publish my writing and, well, start blogging again publicly. I have no desire to waste time on templates, look-and-feel, visual stuff, etc. I just want to write a bog-standard html file, and then publish it...I do value leveraging html elements that help with meta data (e.g. microformats, etc.), but don't care about how things look - and these elements that i value are all invisible to most users anyway. I would be fine with just crafting html by hand, deploying it via sftp or some boring deployment pipleine, and that's it. But, then, I started thinking: what about having an RSS/Atom feed? I used to consume content via an rss reader, but have not done so in years. But, I don't want to manually craft that feed file; nope, sorry. But, I've heard a comment or two from acquaintances that rss/atom feeds and syndication are really something that people - like my potential audience - might really desire. So, I should really consider having one. This means that either I have to craft several things manually (from the blog post itself, the list of archived posts, the feed file, etc.), or use a static site generator that will handle all this for me, etc. I don't want to get trapped down a rabbit hole where I am spending so much on the tooling, the scaffolding, twiddling with templates, or the publish process itself. I just want the minimal for writing and publishing, I want it to live on my domain name, and that's it. Am I crazy or extremely lazy for not wanting to generate an RSS/Atom feed file?

      So, here's my ask of you all nice people: are feeds like RSS/Atom feeds even worth it? If so, does anyone have recommendations for a manual process where i can craft the blog post's html by hand, but somehow leverage a portion of a static site generator (or some minimal tool) to only automate the creation of the RSS/Atom feed file? Thanks in advfance for any constructive feedback!

      P.S. - One thing that re-ignited my desire both to write more in public, and keep it alive with minimal fuss was my re-reading of Jeff Huang's excellent "This Page is Designed to Last" post: https://jeffhuang.com/designed_to_last/

      19 votes
    7. Ask Tildes: What kind of non-mainstream AI are you using regularly?

      Hey Tildes, I was researching about AI usage for a project and was curious -- do you folks use some non-mainstream AI (like outside of ChatGPT/Microsoft Copilot/Apple Intelligence), like perhaps a...

      Hey Tildes, I was researching about AI usage for a project and was curious -- do you folks use some non-mainstream AI (like outside of ChatGPT/Microsoft Copilot/Apple Intelligence), like perhaps a custom Chrome extensions or maybe a desktop application?

      I wanted to understand what use cases for AI exist that the big companies are lacking in right now

      7 votes
    8. Timasomo 2024: Week 3 Updates

      Important Upcoming Dates Tuesday, October 29 - Final Update Topic Tuesday, November 5 - Timasomo Showcase Topic November 1-4 are for putting the "finishing touches" on your project and readying it...

      Important Upcoming Dates

      Tuesday, October 29 - Final Update Topic
      Tuesday, November 5 - Timasomo Showcase Topic

      November 1-4 are for putting the "finishing touches" on your project and readying it for the showcase.

      While November 1 is technically the creative deadline, remember that there are no Timasomo Police, so if you need to keep working into November, go for it! We've had people submit to the showcase days and even weeks later.


      Time for another update on your progress:

      • What did/didn't you get done this week?

      • Anything go according to plan?

      • Anything go off the rails?

      • Any successes or struggles to share?

      • Do you need feedback or help on anything?

      This is your topic to share anything and everything you want about what you’ve made so far.

      13 votes
    9. Switching to Linux, looking for distro recommendations

      Overview When I swapped the motherboard on my computer, I lost my Windows license and Microsoft support was useless. So I am switching my desktop over to Linux. I am planning on setting up dual...

      Overview

      When I swapped the motherboard on my computer, I lost my Windows license and Microsoft support was useless. So I am switching my desktop over to Linux. I am planning on setting up dual boot, so that I still have Windows 10 with the watermark for certain use cases, but hoping I can run primarily Linux.

      Previous Linux Experience

      I have swapped an old laptop to Linux (elementaryOS) before and was able to have it do the simple tasks I required of that computer. I also have an old desktop running proxmox, with various VMs, primarily a NAS running openmediavault. Also, I took a college class on Linux system admin, which focused on various tasks on ubuntu. So overall, I am pretty familiar with Debian-based Linux and doing stuff in the terminal, but I would prefer to not have to use the terminal often.

      Workload

      So I use my computer for fairly normal use cases that should not be too problematic for Linux. Things I plan to do are:

      • Non-competitive gaming (Minecraft, Civilization V and VI, occassionally single player FPS games)
      • Video editing via DaVinci Resolve
      • General web browsing
      • Libre Office is what I plan to switch to from MS Office

      Plans for testing

      I am going to setup a VM on my hypervisor to try out the basic interface of each distro, and try basic tasks. Testing will probably not involve running the heavier applications such as DaVinci Resolve or games. However, I will look into the install process of some of these. For games, I am just going to rely on the work Steam has done for Linux gaming recently.

      Things I am looking for in a distro

      The things I want in a distro are:

      • Debian based preferable, but am considering others
      • Simple tasks can be done graphically, instead of via terminal
      • Upgrade in place is preferable (I believe similar to how ubuntu now allows for upgrades to the next LTS does not require a reinstall)
      • Similar UI to Windows 10 is preferable

      Planned distros to test

      Distros I wanted to try before posting

      • popOS
      • Mint

      Distros I am considering testing after being recommended them:

      • Arch
      • Fedora (I am strongly leaning towards this one, but want to do more testing)
      48 votes
    10. Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix 2024 - Results

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      Race 2 of the triple-header complete! At the highest altitude of all the races: Mexico City.

      Lots of crashes into the barriers this weekend. Such as for Yuki. I think Yuki was pulling off a great move on the outside of Albon, but Albon was being squeezed by Gasly, which made him squeeze Yuki. Either way, both were out of the running before Turn 1.

      Max had a great start on Sainz to get P1, but then Sainz had a great run on Max after the restart! Sainz's move surprised me actually. But then Max's moves on Norris, as the latter attempted to pass the former, were ugly, to say the least. Both 10-sec penalties on Max deserved, IMO.

      Perez had a great start at his home race, 'cept for the false start (looks like he was too far ahead of the marks). That earned him a 5-sec. But seems like the scrap and touch with Lawson just left him adrift at the back. At one point, Zhou was on hards 20 laps older than Perez' mediums, but Perez couldn't get anywhere close to DRS range of Zhou.

      Mercedes were entertaining today, with Lewis trying to get around George lap after lap, for 10 laps.

      I was hoping that Leclerc would keep P2, ahead of Norris, as a form of damage control in Red Bull's direction. But Norris came out ahead, after Leclerc almost went into the walls. Which was a good recovery by Leclerc to NOT hit the wall! At least Leclerc also took the fastest lap on the last lap. Another great P1 victory for Sainz. Provided this continues, what a way to finish out his time with Ferrari!

      After the race, Colapinto recived a 10-sec penalty due to a collision between him and Lawson on the penutlimate lap.

      Onward to Brazil!

      Next race:

      Sao Paulo Grand Prix
      Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace
      Sunday, November 3

      Provisional Race Results -- SPOILER
      Pos No Driver Car Laps Time/retired Pts
      1 55 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 71 1:40:55.800 25
      2 4 Lando Norris McLaren Mercedes 71 +4.705s 18
      3 16 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 71 +34.387s 16
      4 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 71 +44.780s 12
      5 63 George Russell Mercedes 71 +48.536s 10
      6 1 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT 71 +59.558s 8
      7 20 Kevin Magnussen Haas Ferrari 71 +63.642s 6
      8 81 Oscar Piastri McLaren Mercedes 71 +64.928s 4
      9 27 Nico Hulkenberg Haas Ferrari 70 +1 lap 2
      10 10 Pierre Gasly Alpine Renault 70 +1 lap 1
      11 18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes 70 +1 lap 0
      12 43 Franco Colapinto Williams Mercedes 70 +1 lap 0
      13 31 Esteban Ocon Alpine Renault 70 +1 lap 0
      14 77 Valtteri Bottas Kick Sauber Ferrari 70 +1 lap 0
      15 24 Zhou Guanyu Kick Sauber Ferrari 70 +1 lap 0
      16 30 Liam Lawson RB Honda RBPT 70 +1 lap 0
      17 11 Sergio Perez Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT 70 +1 lap 0
      NC 14 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes 15 DNF 0
      NC 23 Alexander Albon Williams Mercedes 0 DNF 0
      NC 22 Yuki Tsunoda RB Honda RBPT 0 DNF 0

      Fastest Lap: Charles Leclerc, Lap 71

      Source: F1.com

      9 votes